More than half links on twitter remain unclicked

In a world of 310 million active users on twitter, where people tweet, share, derive information and as such, take a whole lot of time from their day to browse the social media platform, don't happen to click on half of the links which are actually present on twitter.

A majority which includes nearly 59 percent of the total active links on the social media platform, Twitter are not even clicked by the active users during surfing the website inclusive of the people who share the link/links themselves, a new study states.

The researchers from Microsoft and Columbia University formed a collective study of the data over a month and included 2.8 million shares on Twitter, encompassing shared links to the BBC, CNN, Fox News, The New York Times and the Huffington Post.

“It is the first of its kind study,” Fortune quoted the study’s authors as saying. “…there seems to be vastly more niche content that users are willing to mention in Twitter than… content that they are actually willing to click on,” they added.

The bulk of actual clicks on social media were generated by a small group of ‘blockbuster’ articles, with about nine per cent of shared links capturing about 90 per cent of Twitter clicks, the study added.

The study also found that despite Twitter’s reputation as a “live” platform, clicks have a consistent “long tail”, with tweets generating a steady drip of shares and clicks even after an initial 24 hour surge.

The descriptive information of the study also suggested that exaggerated and catchy headlines could be self-defeating on social media.

“Sensational or misleading heads may be more useful for social sharers looking to make a point about themselves, than for actual readers trying to curate their information intake,” it said.

It is clear that social sharing is less directly connected to news impact than has been widely assumed, the study concluded.
(Inputs from IANS )